


I Hunt for a Sign of You

by sekaiseifuku



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, ReunionFic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sekaiseifuku/pseuds/sekaiseifuku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was never anything Shion could do that would ease the itchy restlessness that constantly crawled beneath his skin</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hunt for a Sign of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kafuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafuka/gifts).



_I searched, but no one else had your rhythms,_  
 _Your light, the shady day you brought from the forest_  
 **Pablo Neruda**

The seasons were changing. The energy rationing that was still in place had prevented even those in the government from running the climate controls at all but the hottest of times, so the office windows remained open throughout the day. Almost hot afternoons now gave way to balmy dusks that turned into nights with an edge of cool and Shion couldn’t help but bask in every shift in temperature and humidity – at least until the insects began to invade their precious shelter, attracted by the artificial light.

No one would admit it, but everyone was still wary of insects.

Shion still rode home on his bicycle, taking the long route to Lost Town so he could feel the chill of the damp wind on his face as he raced past the shallow, slow-moving canal. All these years later and he still had to take an internal moment, granting himself permission to _let go_.

Some nights he would ride for hours, the night sky stretching endlessly above him as he raced through darkened streets and forgotten alleyways, his legs pumping the petals faster and faster, as if by going faster he could somehow catch up with someone he knew was not there.

It didn’t matter how fast he rode or the distance he covered – there was never anything he could do that would ease the itchy restlessness that constantly crawled beneath his skin. Tonight, though, the air was heavy with the promise of rain and he didn’t feel like chasing ghosts.

Frankly, he didn’t feel like anything would make a difference.

 _I’ve aged before my time,_ Shion thought, resuming that strange inner dialogue that he’d carried on almost constantly throughout the years.

Any number of psychological studies had been done on the inner workings of the brain, detailing the internal mechanisms that enabled people to cope with day-to-day life. Before, Shion hadn’t paid them much mind and certainly would have never thought he’d have need to maintain such a dialogue. But then again, there were so many things he’d come to accept that would have been quite foreign to him then.

 _If you were here to hear what I’m thinking,_ _he thought,_ _you’d laugh at me. Call me strange._

Shion needed that so desperately.

It was Thursday. Waiting at home would be leftover raisin muffins and perhaps even an apple tart, depending on how business had been at the bakery that day. He loved his mother’s cooking but he couldn’t help but feeling like was too refined, much like life itself in the New City.

He longed for the unstudied flavor of savory stew and boiled potatoes. Of hot water mixed with raw sugar. He longed for the solid warmth of another human being. The tickle of breath on the back of his neck.

Sometimes, Shion thought he might burst from the want of it all.

His bicycle came to a halt almost automatically in front of the staircase leading to his mother's home. He referred to it as _his_ home when he was speaking to others, but he couldn't bring himself to actually think of it in that way. It was a building in the remnants of a once-great city where his mother lived and Shion himself slept … but it was not his home.

Shion had no home.

He may have remained in the same place for what felt like an eternity, working day in and day out to forge a new and brighter future for the former No. 6., but it was not his home. Shion loved its people, struggling day after day to build something beautiful from the ashes of tyranny. He loved the nascent promise the City held, waiting to be shaped into some yet-conceived form. But despite the unshaking commitment he had to his work, Shon had no anchor to the City.

At heart, he was a transient. Just like …

 _H_ e shook his head as he dismounted and picked up his bicycle by the crossbars. _Thoughts like these will do me no good, will they._

There was no place to park on street level and even though the terrain was such that he had to cross the last fifty meters to the bakery on foot, he had no choice but to bring his bicycle with him. Before he’d escaped to the West Block, he’d always had to drag it up the stairs, his body too weak to do much more than that. When he’d returned to life in the city, though, his body had become stronger.

He’d become stronger.

A flash of lightning illuminated the sky, followed by the low rumble of thunder, far in the distance. The air around him was heavy with the promise of rain and as he began his ascent, Shion turned his face upward in hopes of feeling the first dusty drops on his face. I

 _Even the fleeting touch of water on my face would be something_ , he thought. _Something real_.

A voice from the alleyway startled him. “Are you looking for the mothership to take you home?”

Shion’s body tensed and he almost tripped, his endocrine system releasing a flood of adrenaline into his body, increasing his heart rate and respiration. His vision sharpened as what felt like a cascade of a thousand needles ran up his spine.

The bicycle clattered to the ground as he spun around in time to see a figure emerging from the shadows.

“I’m glad to see some things haven’t changed,” it commented, its voice droll.

_Nezumi._

Without thinking, Shion launched himself over the railing that divided one side of the staircase from the other and found himself face to face with the one thing … the one _person_ that could put the meaning back in his life.

A million times over the past years he’d thought about what he might say when Nezumi returned. He’d authored it in his mind again and again, editing and revising and whispering it to himself in a solo rehearsal in the dead of night. Questions. Exonerations. Pleas. Confessions.

It had all been for nothing, however, because Shion’s mind was now erased, filled with nothing but the lightening grey of Nezumi’s eyes and the wry quirk of his smile.

“You’ve grown,” Nezumi stated.

The height difference wasn’t substantial, but definitely noticeable than before. Nezumi was still taller, but not by as much.

He reached out to Shion, cupping his cheek in the palm of his hand and drawing him closer. It was a searing heat against the chill of his skin.

“If your eyes were not the color of the moon,” Nezumi began, “of a day full of clay, and work, and fire, if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air, if you were not an amber week, not the yellow moment when autumn climbs up through the vines; if you were not that bread the fragrant moon kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky, oh, my dearest, I could not love you so!”

Shion cocked his head, furrowing his brown slightly. “The moon isn’t red tonight - there aren’t the necessary particles in the air.”

Nezumi sighed as he leaned down to rest their foreheads together. “It’s a poem, you airhead.”

Shion clenched his fists together, realizing he had somehow taken grasp of the front of Nezumi’s shirt.

“You would,” Nezumi continued, his breath soft against Shion’s lips, “of course have to completely ruin what should have been the most romantic of moments. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Is that what this is? Romantic?” Shion asked softly.

Funny. It seemed like such a small, insignificant word to describe the inner maelstrom he was experiencing, surrounded by the smell of Nezumi, the burning heat of his body, the pressure of calloused fingers against his cheek, and the pattering of rain that had just begun to fall around them. He had started trembling at some point, his body manifesting the flood of emotion, the chaos within him.

Nezumi moved suddenly, changing the angle of his head so their lips were now pressed together. Neither one moved to deepen the kiss, focusing instead on the simple sensation of connection between them, soft and painful. After countless seconds, Nezumi pulled back slightly, taking a deep breath before whispering—

“I’m home.”

Shion’s fists tightened further, the fibers of Nezumi’s shirt rough in his grasp. Such a simple phrase – so automatic and so terribly commonplace – suddenly took on a new meaning, a life of its own.

This.

This thing they had between them.

It didn’t matter the time or the place. It didn’t matter if it was in the West Block or No. 6 or the hinterlands beyond. _This_ was home.

Shion smiled, broad and wide, a sudden calm washing over him. “Welcome back, Nezumi.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The gorgeous, gorgeous poetry was stolen from Pablo Neruda. The opening quote (and title) is from [Sonnet XLII: I Hunt For A Sign Of You](http://allpoetry.com/poem/8496939-Sonnet_XLII_I_Hunt_For_A_Sign_Of_You-by-Pablo_Neruda). Nezumi quotes [Sonnet VIII: If Your Eyes Were Not the Color of the Moon](http://allpoetry.com/poem/8496903-Sonnet_VIII_If_your_eyes_were_not__the_color_of_the_moon-by-Pablo_Neruda).


End file.
